No copyright and freedom of the individual are not the same thing, but the issue is here that you are asking a loaded question.
You are asking, if hanging escaped slaves isn't the answer, then how should they be handled. Making it obvious that in your mind, that you already made up your mind that there should be punishment.
Others would argue that you might ask whether the very concept of copyright might not need to be changed. Once again.
Copyright has NOT been in existence for the vast majority of human history. Thousands of years, humanity has progressed and produced art that has endured across the ages, with absolutely no copyright.
This changed, and NOT as you might think to protect the creators of content, but the publishers of content. Copyright is not for nothing called COPY right. It was created to protect music PUBLISHERS, printed music sheets, who bought the music from artist for a small sum and then printed money. Obviously, they wanted to be only ones to be allowed to do that, and so copyright was started in its modern form.
The current system is a dreadful beast. The same Disney that has lobbied to have it extended published Pinocchio on the day after the copyright on it expired. Yet if you dare to use their work, you will be hounded by their lawyers, even with works of parody.
No, you ask how the slave should be punished, when every right thinking person ask, should slavery be allowed.
Copyright needs to change, it has no longer got anything to do with giving a creator a change to make a living of his work and everything with enormous business interests seeking to bleed every last penny from content others produced. When a music publishers seeks money a dozen times from the same person for the same song, the beast needs to be killed. 1 payment for the audio sample. Another for the tune on your iPod, then next for the home stereo, another fee to embed it in your birthday video, another if you play it a party, more money still for your ringtone, buy it again if you buy another MP3-player.
ENOUGH
Copyright has to change. Computer games that cost ever more for shorter and shorter games with tiny addons costing 10 bucks or more is nickle and diming the industry to death. People bought games when you could simply swap them on a floppy because the price was right. 70+ euro's for a PS3 games is just not on. Especially since the PC version costs 30-40 euro's LESS. The Collectors Edition of Dragon Age for the PC costs the same as the regular edition for the consoles. Greed gone out of control.
For music the same goes. Apple lovers, turn away, this is going to hurt. The costs of an iTune song is the purest greed displayed, until the BBC named its pricing plans for the iPlayer. 1 dollar/euro for a song, that does not have to be pressed on a CD, put in a box with a printed sleeve, stocked and shipped, all with the risk of producing to few or to many, is JUST TO FUCKING MUCH. What happened to the CAPITALIST idea of cost savings reducing prices? The BBC even thought to charge 10 dollar per episode. God help the Eastenders fan. Or worse, neighbors.
The prices got nothing more to do with demand and supply but with "We supply therefor we demand."
Movies make record profits, yet the movie industry is being killed by downloading. How can this be? Because some MPAA accountant has told movie moguls that their are 6 billion people in this world and so their movie should at 10 dollars per ticket earn them 60 billion. When it doesn't, piracy is to blame.
Pension funds in Holland invest in MUSIC rights for the future as their analysts who are boring men who think gold is unstable because it evaporates at a rate of few atoms every 1 million years, have determined it is a reliable investment. A safe buy that pays for itself in 10 years and is then a steady source of income at virtually no cost.
Yet the music industry is supposedly at an edge.
No, it is no wonder you posted as an AC. You are arguing a lost cause, people
As such, it is a cheap shocker moment, NOT an eye opener to the real difficulties in war. Do you open fire on an enemy location knowing civilians might also be there, or restrain yourself at the risk of the enemy killing you without hesitation.
Don't matter, he can still feel smugly superior
on
Laptop Fires On Airplanes
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· Score: 2, Insightful
While of course he himself also goes into the line, like everyone else. After all, the alternative is to take a train. That is borderline communist.
This is one of those quotes that has to be remembered. Paying 10 dollars (and most likely 10 euros) for a SINGLE tv episode...
This guy is not just out of touch with reality, he might actually be classified as insane. Imagine having to pay that for something like well, Torchwood. It has 3 seasons, each 13 eps long, so lets make it an even 30x 10 is 300 dollars for this show alone.
Season 1 on DVD costs 47 dollars (on amazon) and 2 costs 57. Lets assume season 3 costs 60 and you have to pay on the iPlayer DOUBLE the price but without any physical production costs.
And I thought iTunes was a ripoff (same price, massicaly reduced production costs === fat profits for someone), but iTunes only charges the SAME price as the CD. Not DOUBLE!
The great "If content produces were in charge of other industries" list
Frozen pizza from a supermarket would cost more then pizza delivered to your house. A pizza recipe would cost more then either one.
Reading the back cover of a book would require a fee.
Libraries would be outlawed.
Repairing your own car would be a criminal violation.
You could only put your petrol from Shell into vehilces approved by Shell and only if you don't take passengers with you. Putting petrol in a lighter would see you in jail.
Reading a book to your child would require you to pay a performance fee.
Coloring books would be outlawed, unauthorized use of a copyrighted work to use a derivative product.
Any advances that lead to savings will result in a price increase.
There would be no classic coke. The recipe for new coke would be "improved" each year with taste-testing done only on 12yr old girls and people who think full house if a comedy.
Your car would show a message every 10 miles, telling to make sure you buy the car, that you just bought.
A high priced hooker you payed to show you a good time, would go to bed with a headache, just like your wife and say "it is reality prostitution!"
When you quote, "640k should be enough for everyone" Bill Gates charges you a performance fee. Paraphrase it and you are sued for illegal use of his copyright work.
If you commit three traffic violations, you would be banned from the streets.
If you are caught lying to your customers three times, you would be banned from doing business.
If you made three bad tv shows, you would be banned from making tv ever again... bye bye BBC.
The EU is more then just the economic union it was meant to be. It is being used a tool to make the most extreme rules of one nation affect everyone else, the content mafia happily exploits this by trying in all different countries at once, seeing what gets through and so affect the whole EU at once.
The EU powers happily cooperate, EU law should rule all citizens except those in power as was made clear today when Berlesconi was not chastised for his many crimes.
Seems hosting a torrent in another country is bad. Controlling all media in another country, that is that others country business.
People, please let this idea die VERY quickly. Chrome is NOT there to get an install base for Chrome. It is there to get an install base for modern browsers with fast javascript/DOM.
Googles operates in the browser and in order to be able to get the next generation products out there, it needs to ensure that those products can be run. IE/MS ain't capable of this, so they both push MS by making them scared to completly loose the browser AND by capabilities to IE to make it play catch up with the real browsers.
In a way, what Google is doing is installing electricity cabling into every house. NOT because it wants to be in the utility business but because it has all these design for electric machines and they ain't going to be selling them to people who use candles and woodstoves.
MS on the other hand does NOT want people to have modern browsers, or rather not browsers that act like browsers. Its business relies on activex and.net and the like to keep apps closely tied to their windows OS.
MS fears projects like gmail and worse wave. It knows that its software is increasingly a major cost of computers (check it, hardware prices go down, MS prices go up) and while so far its software offers a lot more features, the sign of netbooks is that, a lot of them ain't needed. I got a netbook (with linux) that is not nearly as capable as a full PC. I can't game on it, its office tools are simplistic but guess what, it is all I really need.
MS has been selling XP, a lot, for netbooks but it has been doing it at a fraction of the price it would like to charge and really, it only sold XP so cheaply because else Linux would have been installed. You would be right in assuming a LOT of people would replace Linux with an OLD XP copy (license of an old PC you threw away is still valid) but MS doesn't even want the idea that there maybe yet another OS out there. An OS that while not perfect is good enough. People are already getting dangerously exposed to this idea by their cellphones. Quick poll, who has Windows Mobile and is willing to admit it? Everyone knows that an iPhone gets you the girls, this even goes for girls.
MS ideally wants to sell you their OS for 300+ dollars, that doesn't fit well for a 300- netbook or indeed a mobile phone, but that is MS business model, and ideally, you should spend another 300 for the office suit. (please, MS fanboys, do NOT link to student discounts or OEM versions. Full price for the box in the MS store.)
Google is doing something completly different. It is saying. Nah, you don't need a 300 dollar OS with a 300 dollar productivity suite. Just a browser (free) on free/cheap OS and you got all you really need. For free. Sure, there are some angles (your data is on the google servers) but for a lot of people, it is good enough.
AND that, is what scares MS. Because... even if people would still use windows, the window sthey would be using is their old XP. This is already the case in a many companies. And without the cashcows of Windows/Office, how can MS afford all its other attempts to control markets?
The browser wars are back, but they are being fought for a different reason. Chrome is NOT netscape 2.0
And follow what the people you elect have done and then support and advocate those that have the true intrests of the people at heart rather then just voting for the guy giving you 300 dollars or makes you feel good for a bit like Santa Claus but has no real plan.
But nah, lets fear tech, that is so much cooler then just making sure those who would abuse power, don't get into power.
Only an idiot would think that resolution has got anything to do with immersion. A low-rez photo is 100% realistic, but a canvas the sized of a cathredal ceiling is still clearly a painting.
The current graphics are getting better but there is still a lot of detail missing and we humans are very good at seeing it. Games like GTA4 seem to be very realistic until you realize that... what is missing. Where are the cats and dogs. The pigeons (that fly up). Why are most of the windows just textures and not windows.
You can hide some of the missing elements with speed but it soons becomes very clear that the world is far from complete, far from realistic. Why does my car only leave tire tracks on the road but doesn't it draw a track in the sand? Because the current computers are nowhere near powerful enough to handle even such a simple thing.
And it matters, and the company that will give us the next advance will be the company with the next big hit because while there might be a market for games that look like games, there is also a market for games set in worlds that look and act more realistic.
One of the earlier racing titles I had was a LCD game where you had a round track and you raced by chosing the inner or outer line with some parts being unpassable so you had to choose wisely or be stuck behind an "AI" driver. Games have improved, you can now drive at will across the road. As graphics and physics have increased the games have become more "realistic". From attempting to have some idea of physiucs to simulating each wheel on its own and onward. Someday someone will make a racing sim that can handle a changing road and we will have dirt racing games that are even more like the real thing because of it and it will be good.
Not all games have to be real, there is a room for Mario kart but Mario kart itself is no longer the game it once was thanks to ever increasing CPU power.
So, your entire story is as idiotic as those people who claim "HD, who needs it, I can't see the difference anyway". It shows you should get some glasses, or in your case, play a old game that was once considered state of the art and then a modern game.
You will see that better graphics are not just a novelty.
Well? Don't you get it? THIS IS THEIR STRATEGY. And it works. They made billions with it, so why should they change?
The russian strategy in WW2 was "Send in 1 million troops, then send in 1 million more from reserves." Sure, you could complain that their casualties were extremely high, but it worked as a strategy. You COULD have suggested they reform their tactics but why? It worked.
You have no respect for them as businessmen.That is wrong, Ballmer might suck as a human being and a developer but as a businessman he is pretty shrewd.
Oh, MS MIGHT be able to make more money with quality software but that costs a LOT of money and Vista happened because MS tried to make quality (with Longhorn) and failed and had to pump out something or be sued over its software assurance license (that you pay for X years and get every new version, Vista got in just under the wire or MS would have had no new version).
Russia MIGHT have gone for better trained troops and more advanced tactics but that would have been extremely risky and not making full use of what they did best, churn out an insane amount of troops and material.
If you want to blame somebody, blame the ones who BUY MS products. Who have settled for software were random reboots are the order of the day. Where you have to pay a premium for what is essentially a minor upgrade. There are many excuses to continue to use Windows, but they are nothing else then saying "I know I am using crap, but I am to lazy to do anything about it."
Don't blame the person shitting in your mouth, blame yourself for paying them for sucking on their arsehole.
Windows is the easy option BUT MS puts all sorts of restrictions on it, it is the reason Intel is pushing Moblin, so that powerfull netbooks can be made without the cost of Vista/7
The incentive is that 90% (statistic pulled out of my ass) of the customers just want something they are familiar with.
A shop isn't going to stock 1 linux netbook for 9 windows netbooks, unsure of wether it will ever sell it. It is just simpler to ship 100% windows boxes knowing that large group of Linux fans will simply wipe windows because they are used to it.
We can only hope that MS shoots itself in the foot with its insane restrictions on netbooks forcing manufacturers that want to push the envolope to either pay the premium for Vista/7 or be out performed by companies that do dare to go linux.
Google linux netbooks, those companies are out there. The few and the brave. Buy from them, it is a called voting with your dollars.
Racism/Sexism exists in the KKK type, sure, that is easy.
It is a bit different when you are for instance a jew and that has become a curse word. Oh, not openly but near constantly. You can keep quiet, (don't ask, don't tell) which is often then considered a show it ain't a problem at all.
Don't show you are different and you can just ignore it all and be happy.
But it is a very complex subject. We don't want to be an 'ism ourselves. Oh, you use the word gay NOT to describe someone happy or someone who likes members of the same sex, but something that you don't like. But you don't think all homosexuals should be castraded then killed, so you are okay and not a homophobe at all.
The real problem is that we are racist and sexist and it is VERY hard to honestly look at how our own behavior affects someone else.
Even if you attempt to compensate, that often can have a bad effect as well. And in these case death often occurs by a thousand cuts. It is not your slightly condecending remark, it is years and years of it.
And it ain't even always the opposite side who does it. How many comments would you as a guy get from your male friends if you became a nurse? How many comments to do you think a girl gets who goes into IT? Pushed away by one side, pulled by another, it takes a LOT to remain standing.
The real problem, is that it ain't just one problem. There is no easy fix. But that doesn't mean we can sit back and say "oh this is just the way it is".
So, take a long hard look at yourself. Have you ever thought when a woman asked for some help with a computer, "oh, god. no doubt she wanted to install barbie playhouse and put the CD in the wrong side up"? Then you are part of the problem and fixing it... well it is as hard as fixing the notion that men can't change a babies diaper. Harmless? Wait till you are fighting for custody for your kids from your wife who has a history of passing out drunk to the world. Then you will know how deadly sexism can be.
You defend MikeeUSA's feelings by saying he has come to his extremist views from years of being exposed to extreme views.
So, how come that you cannot come to the same conclusion in reverse? That those women you quote (often out of context) have come to their view from the decades, centuries even millenia of extremist views women have endured?
Extremism grows best when opposed by extremist.
All men are rapist. It was once the law that a woman had to obey her husband without question. Submit to him regardless of her own wishes. How do you define rape else then forcing sex against someones will?
The marriage comment. Since we now regonize the right of a person to refuse sex even within marriage and that a woman is no longer the property of the husband, traditional marriage has indeed been abolished. It has been replaced by an entirely different version with competly different laws, just using the same name. The old was destroyed to make place for a new better more equal version.
To kill an infant. We do this all the time, the west owns it wealth and health to the fact that women no longer drop a new kid every year. It allows for very long, expensive education and a high concentration of best food and medical care, rather then waste it on a dozen kids, most who will die because they do not get the resources they need. Why do you think Africa does so poorly? Everytime they do a bit better, they get an explosion of new people who they can't feed or educate. Birth control IS the answer. Her proposal should be seen as a way to shake things up, overkill to get people thinking about just what it means for a family that has no control over the number of children.
to decontaminate the planet. Again, an extreem suggestion but the counter result of the extreem in which baby girls in china are killed because they are not valued.
We, western white males, all to easily forget just how extreem hatred can get. Watch a holocaust documentary and remember, this ain't all that long ago. Women only got the vote recently, only had the right to own property recently.
While a lot has changed, this has changed because people werewilling to talk extremist. Once, a woman who talked about the right to vote, could go to jail for this terrible crime.
You defend MikeeUSA for his extremist views, but deny the same excuse for the other side.
That is all to common sadly, but to give you a clear example of how one-sided this is. You would send a woman who kicked her rapist to jail for kicking him in the balls afterwards.
Just some users are better at it then other, but George Lucas WAS just fan of action movies who grew up with Flash Gordon and made his own version of it. He just did it really really well. But all real artist start by singing, dancing, painting for their mommy.
Just look at the music industries desire to CHARGE for 30 second samples.
People often claim that business is more economic then goverment but fail to see that business has only one rule: get every last dime you can get.
If Murdoch had been smart, he would have build google a decade ago. Who better to search the news then the news makers. Why do we use google to find the news and not the newspapers own search engines?
This is similar to authors who complain about their books getting listen in catalogs with excerpts (?) from their books, or horror of horrors, libraries.
Murdoch ain't even smart enough to come up with new idiotic complaint.
Sorry Amazon, but your market is the early adoptors and those with to much cash.
The idea of an e-book reader in itself is... well it is the PSP-Go. What am I going to do with all the books I already bought? Can't rip them and put them on it can I?
Rebuy all of them? Sure, if they were cheap, but they ain't even cheaper then the printed book.
So, I have to buy a very expensive reader, that I can't use on my existing collection of books and in return I get something that can break if I sit on it, batteries run out, can't loan to someone, can't use in an emergency to start a fire, can't swat a fly with, can't sell cheaply or buy cheaply second-hand and worsed of all, none of the savings get passed on to me.
But e-books mean no printed copies to stock so ALL books every published can be available... yeah, but they ain't.
Sorry, this is a no-win to me.
It would be as if the mp3 players had been produced by the music industry (see Zune).
But maybe, just maybe, authors will rebel. They do NOT have the costs of a sound-studio, their product is ready for distro from the start and selling a few kb's is not exactly going to take a monster server. An author who sells his own books for a 50 cents but gets to collect those whole 50 cents might be a LOT better off, especially as he would kill the 2nd hand and loaning business. Who is going to bother for 50 cents?
But nah, that won't happen. Artists are lazy, if they weren't, they wouldn't be artists.
Slashdot Mirror
No copyright and freedom of the individual are not the same thing, but the issue is here that you are asking a loaded question.
You are asking, if hanging escaped slaves isn't the answer, then how should they be handled. Making it obvious that in your mind, that you already made up your mind that there should be punishment.
Others would argue that you might ask whether the very concept of copyright might not need to be changed. Once again.
Copyright has NOT been in existence for the vast majority of human history. Thousands of years, humanity has progressed and produced art that has endured across the ages, with absolutely no copyright.
This changed, and NOT as you might think to protect the creators of content, but the publishers of content. Copyright is not for nothing called COPY right. It was created to protect music PUBLISHERS, printed music sheets, who bought the music from artist for a small sum and then printed money. Obviously, they wanted to be only ones to be allowed to do that, and so copyright was started in its modern form.
The current system is a dreadful beast. The same Disney that has lobbied to have it extended published Pinocchio on the day after the copyright on it expired. Yet if you dare to use their work, you will be hounded by their lawyers, even with works of parody.
No, you ask how the slave should be punished, when every right thinking person ask, should slavery be allowed.
Copyright needs to change, it has no longer got anything to do with giving a creator a change to make a living of his work and everything with enormous business interests seeking to bleed every last penny from content others produced. When a music publishers seeks money a dozen times from the same person for the same song, the beast needs to be killed. 1 payment for the audio sample. Another for the tune on your iPod, then next for the home stereo, another fee to embed it in your birthday video, another if you play it a party, more money still for your ringtone, buy it again if you buy another MP3-player.
ENOUGH
Copyright has to change. Computer games that cost ever more for shorter and shorter games with tiny addons costing 10 bucks or more is nickle and diming the industry to death. People bought games when you could simply swap them on a floppy because the price was right. 70+ euro's for a PS3 games is just not on. Especially since the PC version costs 30-40 euro's LESS. The Collectors Edition of Dragon Age for the PC costs the same as the regular edition for the consoles. Greed gone out of control.
For music the same goes. Apple lovers, turn away, this is going to hurt. The costs of an iTune song is the purest greed displayed, until the BBC named its pricing plans for the iPlayer. 1 dollar/euro for a song, that does not have to be pressed on a CD, put in a box with a printed sleeve, stocked and shipped, all with the risk of producing to few or to many, is JUST TO FUCKING MUCH. What happened to the CAPITALIST idea of cost savings reducing prices? The BBC even thought to charge 10 dollar per episode. God help the Eastenders fan. Or worse, neighbors.
The prices got nothing more to do with demand and supply but with "We supply therefor we demand."
Movies make record profits, yet the movie industry is being killed by downloading. How can this be? Because some MPAA accountant has told movie moguls that their are 6 billion people in this world and so their movie should at 10 dollars per ticket earn them 60 billion. When it doesn't, piracy is to blame.
Pension funds in Holland invest in MUSIC rights for the future as their analysts who are boring men who think gold is unstable because it evaporates at a rate of few atoms every 1 million years, have determined it is a reliable investment. A safe buy that pays for itself in 10 years and is then a steady source of income at virtually no cost.
Yet the music industry is supposedly at an edge.
No, it is no wonder you posted as an AC. You are arguing a lost cause, people
Because you are not the one doing the shooting? Some people need to STFU and THINK before they speak.
You play the terrorist in this segment.
As such, it is a cheap shocker moment, NOT an eye opener to the real difficulties in war. Do you open fire on an enemy location knowing civilians might also be there, or restrain yourself at the risk of the enemy killing you without hesitation.
While of course he himself also goes into the line, like everyone else. After all, the alternative is to take a train. That is borderline communist.
This is one of those quotes that has to be remembered. Paying 10 dollars (and most likely 10 euros) for a SINGLE tv episode...
This guy is not just out of touch with reality, he might actually be classified as insane. Imagine having to pay that for something like well, Torchwood. It has 3 seasons, each 13 eps long, so lets make it an even 30x 10 is 300 dollars for this show alone.
Season 1 on DVD costs 47 dollars (on amazon) and 2 costs 57. Lets assume season 3 costs 60 and you have to pay on the iPlayer DOUBLE the price but without any physical production costs.
And I thought iTunes was a ripoff (same price, massicaly reduced production costs === fat profits for someone), but iTunes only charges the SAME price as the CD. Not DOUBLE!
The great "If content produces were in charge of other industries" list
The EU is more then just the economic union it was meant to be. It is being used a tool to make the most extreme rules of one nation affect everyone else, the content mafia happily exploits this by trying in all different countries at once, seeing what gets through and so affect the whole EU at once.
The EU powers happily cooperate, EU law should rule all citizens except those in power as was made clear today when Berlesconi was not chastised for his many crimes.
Seems hosting a torrent in another country is bad. Controlling all media in another country, that is that others country business.
EU citizens feel better when they read of US civil rights violations.
US citizens feel better when they read of EU civil rights violations.
Maybe that warm glowing feeling is you getting shafted.
People, please let this idea die VERY quickly. Chrome is NOT there to get an install base for Chrome. It is there to get an install base for modern browsers with fast javascript/DOM.
Googles operates in the browser and in order to be able to get the next generation products out there, it needs to ensure that those products can be run. IE/MS ain't capable of this, so they both push MS by making them scared to completly loose the browser AND by capabilities to IE to make it play catch up with the real browsers.
In a way, what Google is doing is installing electricity cabling into every house. NOT because it wants to be in the utility business but because it has all these design for electric machines and they ain't going to be selling them to people who use candles and woodstoves.
MS on the other hand does NOT want people to have modern browsers, or rather not browsers that act like browsers. Its business relies on activex and .net and the like to keep apps closely tied to their windows OS.
MS fears projects like gmail and worse wave. It knows that its software is increasingly a major cost of computers (check it, hardware prices go down, MS prices go up) and while so far its software offers a lot more features, the sign of netbooks is that, a lot of them ain't needed. I got a netbook (with linux) that is not nearly as capable as a full PC. I can't game on it, its office tools are simplistic but guess what, it is all I really need.
MS has been selling XP, a lot, for netbooks but it has been doing it at a fraction of the price it would like to charge and really, it only sold XP so cheaply because else Linux would have been installed. You would be right in assuming a LOT of people would replace Linux with an OLD XP copy (license of an old PC you threw away is still valid) but MS doesn't even want the idea that there maybe yet another OS out there. An OS that while not perfect is good enough. People are already getting dangerously exposed to this idea by their cellphones. Quick poll, who has Windows Mobile and is willing to admit it? Everyone knows that an iPhone gets you the girls, this even goes for girls.
MS ideally wants to sell you their OS for 300+ dollars, that doesn't fit well for a 300- netbook or indeed a mobile phone, but that is MS business model, and ideally, you should spend another 300 for the office suit. (please, MS fanboys, do NOT link to student discounts or OEM versions. Full price for the box in the MS store.)
Google is doing something completly different. It is saying. Nah, you don't need a 300 dollar OS with a 300 dollar productivity suite. Just a browser (free) on free/cheap OS and you got all you really need. For free. Sure, there are some angles (your data is on the google servers) but for a lot of people, it is good enough.
AND that, is what scares MS. Because... even if people would still use windows, the window sthey would be using is their old XP. This is already the case in a many companies. And without the cashcows of Windows/Office, how can MS afford all its other attempts to control markets?
The browser wars are back, but they are being fought for a different reason. Chrome is NOT netscape 2.0
And follow what the people you elect have done and then support and advocate those that have the true intrests of the people at heart rather then just voting for the guy giving you 300 dollars or makes you feel good for a bit like Santa Claus but has no real plan.
But nah, lets fear tech, that is so much cooler then just making sure those who would abuse power, don't get into power.
Only an idiot would think that resolution has got anything to do with immersion. A low-rez photo is 100% realistic, but a canvas the sized of a cathredal ceiling is still clearly a painting.
The current graphics are getting better but there is still a lot of detail missing and we humans are very good at seeing it. Games like GTA4 seem to be very realistic until you realize that... what is missing. Where are the cats and dogs. The pigeons (that fly up). Why are most of the windows just textures and not windows.
You can hide some of the missing elements with speed but it soons becomes very clear that the world is far from complete, far from realistic. Why does my car only leave tire tracks on the road but doesn't it draw a track in the sand? Because the current computers are nowhere near powerful enough to handle even such a simple thing.
And it matters, and the company that will give us the next advance will be the company with the next big hit because while there might be a market for games that look like games, there is also a market for games set in worlds that look and act more realistic.
One of the earlier racing titles I had was a LCD game where you had a round track and you raced by chosing the inner or outer line with some parts being unpassable so you had to choose wisely or be stuck behind an "AI" driver. Games have improved, you can now drive at will across the road. As graphics and physics have increased the games have become more "realistic". From attempting to have some idea of physiucs to simulating each wheel on its own and onward. Someday someone will make a racing sim that can handle a changing road and we will have dirt racing games that are even more like the real thing because of it and it will be good.
Not all games have to be real, there is a room for Mario kart but Mario kart itself is no longer the game it once was thanks to ever increasing CPU power.
So, your entire story is as idiotic as those people who claim "HD, who needs it, I can't see the difference anyway". It shows you should get some glasses, or in your case, play a old game that was once considered state of the art and then a modern game.
You will see that better graphics are not just a novelty.
I got the feeling this guy is in marketing. There was something being said, but it was lost in all the frills.
The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more.
Not all DARPA projects are equal. And MS has a very long history of never ever doing anything that is open or usuable or on time or bug free.
Just because X got a good result, doesn't mean Y isn't a pork project.
"they have been doing the same crap for years"
Well? Don't you get it? THIS IS THEIR STRATEGY. And it works. They made billions with it, so why should they change?
The russian strategy in WW2 was "Send in 1 million troops, then send in 1 million more from reserves." Sure, you could complain that their casualties were extremely high, but it worked as a strategy. You COULD have suggested they reform their tactics but why? It worked.
You have no respect for them as businessmen.That is wrong, Ballmer might suck as a human being and a developer but as a businessman he is pretty shrewd.
Oh, MS MIGHT be able to make more money with quality software but that costs a LOT of money and Vista happened because MS tried to make quality (with Longhorn) and failed and had to pump out something or be sued over its software assurance license (that you pay for X years and get every new version, Vista got in just under the wire or MS would have had no new version).
Russia MIGHT have gone for better trained troops and more advanced tactics but that would have been extremely risky and not making full use of what they did best, churn out an insane amount of troops and material.
If you want to blame somebody, blame the ones who BUY MS products. Who have settled for software were random reboots are the order of the day. Where you have to pay a premium for what is essentially a minor upgrade. There are many excuses to continue to use Windows, but they are nothing else then saying "I know I am using crap, but I am to lazy to do anything about it."
Don't blame the person shitting in your mouth, blame yourself for paying them for sucking on their arsehole.
Windows is the easy option BUT MS puts all sorts of restrictions on it, it is the reason Intel is pushing Moblin, so that powerfull netbooks can be made without the cost of Vista/7
The incentive is that 90% (statistic pulled out of my ass) of the customers just want something they are familiar with.
A shop isn't going to stock 1 linux netbook for 9 windows netbooks, unsure of wether it will ever sell it. It is just simpler to ship 100% windows boxes knowing that large group of Linux fans will simply wipe windows because they are used to it.
We can only hope that MS shoots itself in the foot with its insane restrictions on netbooks forcing manufacturers that want to push the envolope to either pay the premium for Vista/7 or be out performed by companies that do dare to go linux.
Google linux netbooks, those companies are out there. The few and the brave. Buy from them, it is a called voting with your dollars.
We just found ourselves an honest lawyer.
Good thing to see the system is taking care of it.
Cool! Let me move my supermarket headquarter over there.
First rule of business. Pennies add up.
Racism/Sexism exists in the KKK type, sure, that is easy.
It is a bit different when you are for instance a jew and that has become a curse word. Oh, not openly but near constantly. You can keep quiet, (don't ask, don't tell) which is often then considered a show it ain't a problem at all.
Don't show you are different and you can just ignore it all and be happy.
But it is a very complex subject. We don't want to be an 'ism ourselves. Oh, you use the word gay NOT to describe someone happy or someone who likes members of the same sex, but something that you don't like. But you don't think all homosexuals should be castraded then killed, so you are okay and not a homophobe at all.
The real problem is that we are racist and sexist and it is VERY hard to honestly look at how our own behavior affects someone else.
Even if you attempt to compensate, that often can have a bad effect as well. And in these case death often occurs by a thousand cuts. It is not your slightly condecending remark, it is years and years of it.
And it ain't even always the opposite side who does it. How many comments would you as a guy get from your male friends if you became a nurse? How many comments to do you think a girl gets who goes into IT? Pushed away by one side, pulled by another, it takes a LOT to remain standing.
The real problem, is that it ain't just one problem. There is no easy fix. But that doesn't mean we can sit back and say "oh this is just the way it is".
So, take a long hard look at yourself. Have you ever thought when a woman asked for some help with a computer, "oh, god. no doubt she wanted to install barbie playhouse and put the CD in the wrong side up"? Then you are part of the problem and fixing it... well it is as hard as fixing the notion that men can't change a babies diaper. Harmless? Wait till you are fighting for custody for your kids from your wife who has a history of passing out drunk to the world. Then you will know how deadly sexism can be.
You defend MikeeUSA's feelings by saying he has come to his extremist views from years of being exposed to extreme views.
So, how come that you cannot come to the same conclusion in reverse? That those women you quote (often out of context) have come to their view from the decades, centuries even millenia of extremist views women have endured?
Extremism grows best when opposed by extremist.
All men are rapist. It was once the law that a woman had to obey her husband without question. Submit to him regardless of her own wishes. How do you define rape else then forcing sex against someones will?
The marriage comment. Since we now regonize the right of a person to refuse sex even within marriage and that a woman is no longer the property of the husband, traditional marriage has indeed been abolished. It has been replaced by an entirely different version with competly different laws, just using the same name. The old was destroyed to make place for a new better more equal version.
To kill an infant. We do this all the time, the west owns it wealth and health to the fact that women no longer drop a new kid every year. It allows for very long, expensive education and a high concentration of best food and medical care, rather then waste it on a dozen kids, most who will die because they do not get the resources they need. Why do you think Africa does so poorly? Everytime they do a bit better, they get an explosion of new people who they can't feed or educate. Birth control IS the answer. Her proposal should be seen as a way to shake things up, overkill to get people thinking about just what it means for a family that has no control over the number of children.
to decontaminate the planet. Again, an extreem suggestion but the counter result of the extreem in which baby girls in china are killed because they are not valued.
We, western white males, all to easily forget just how extreem hatred can get. Watch a holocaust documentary and remember, this ain't all that long ago. Women only got the vote recently, only had the right to own property recently.
While a lot has changed, this has changed because people werewilling to talk extremist. Once, a woman who talked about the right to vote, could go to jail for this terrible crime.
You defend MikeeUSA for his extremist views, but deny the same excuse for the other side.
That is all to common sadly, but to give you a clear example of how one-sided this is. You would send a woman who kicked her rapist to jail for kicking him in the balls afterwards.
I know, I know, silly me for reading the actual summary.
Just some users are better at it then other, but George Lucas WAS just fan of action movies who grew up with Flash Gordon and made his own version of it. He just did it really really well. But all real artist start by singing, dancing, painting for their mommy.
It is development dome.
Two companies enter, MS comes out, slightly fatter.
If you do business with MS, you are riding a tiger with the brains to realize that lunch is only a roll on the ground away.
MS really should be renamed to BubbaSoft. Get into the shower with BubbaSoft and you know what is going to happen.
He also hopes that you are not going to learn only now, that backups would have been a good idea.
You SHOULD have said, I hope THEY don't just learn, 'backups would have been a good idea.'
Your boss again, this is what your meant right?
Just look at the music industries desire to CHARGE for 30 second samples.
People often claim that business is more economic then goverment but fail to see that business has only one rule: get every last dime you can get.
If Murdoch had been smart, he would have build google a decade ago. Who better to search the news then the news makers. Why do we use google to find the news and not the newspapers own search engines?
This is similar to authors who complain about their books getting listen in catalogs with excerpts (?) from their books, or horror of horrors, libraries.
Murdoch ain't even smart enough to come up with new idiotic complaint.
Sorry Amazon, but your market is the early adoptors and those with to much cash.
The idea of an e-book reader in itself is... well it is the PSP-Go. What am I going to do with all the books I already bought? Can't rip them and put them on it can I?
Rebuy all of them? Sure, if they were cheap, but they ain't even cheaper then the printed book.
So, I have to buy a very expensive reader, that I can't use on my existing collection of books and in return I get something that can break if I sit on it, batteries run out, can't loan to someone, can't use in an emergency to start a fire, can't swat a fly with, can't sell cheaply or buy cheaply second-hand and worsed of all, none of the savings get passed on to me.
But e-books mean no printed copies to stock so ALL books every published can be available... yeah, but they ain't.
Sorry, this is a no-win to me.
It would be as if the mp3 players had been produced by the music industry (see Zune).
But maybe, just maybe, authors will rebel. They do NOT have the costs of a sound-studio, their product is ready for distro from the start and selling a few kb's is not exactly going to take a monster server. An author who sells his own books for a 50 cents but gets to collect those whole 50 cents might be a LOT better off, especially as he would kill the 2nd hand and loaning business. Who is going to bother for 50 cents?
But nah, that won't happen. Artists are lazy, if they weren't, they wouldn't be artists.